


Let These Memories Take Me Home

by mmwhatchasayy



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Depressed Steve, I mean sorta, M/M, Pre-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Steve Rogers Feels, Suicidal Ideation, Tony is a jerk, implied Steve/Bucky, in this fic he's hella douchey tho, jk i actually love tony stark, my poor baby steve just needs to rest, so read with care, sorry i'm so bad at tags, steve missing bucky, steve remembering the valkyrie, tony stark is an asshole what else is new
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-12
Updated: 2017-05-12
Packaged: 2018-10-30 21:28:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,103
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10885269
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mmwhatchasayy/pseuds/mmwhatchasayy
Summary: "Tell us, Cap. What was it like to freeze?"// Or the one in which Steve tells the Avengers what it's like to die.





	Let These Memories Take Me Home

Honestly, Steve didn't know why he was still there.

He should've left a long time ago, should've headed upstairs to his floor the second the others - not his friends, not quite yet, but after all they'd been through together it was safe to say they were more than just colleagues - had gone from tipsy to drunk.

Because being the only sober one in the room got old fast, and Steve had surely had enough of that for one lifetime.

Try as he might, drinking did nothing for him anymore.

It couldn't numb the pain after he'd lost his best friend, couldn't blur this crazy, bright new world he'd opened his eyes to, couldn't allow him to let loose with these people surrounding him, nosy and loud and over-the-top but, underneath it all, kind. 

(He knew they were kind, they had to be, fighting to save strangers the way that they did. Someone that wasn't _good_ didn't risk their life for that of another.)

Even back before the war - not this confusing new war, with aliens and gods and men flying through the sky in suits made of metal, but instead a war much more terrifying, much more deadly, with so much more for Steve to lose - even back then, he couldn't drink.

Of course, the reasoning behind it had been plenty different.

Back then, just a bottle of that watered-down, truly awful beer Bucky always drank could send him straight to the bathroom, completely emptying his stomach of all its contents.

He'd been a bit of a lightweight, so to speak.

But right now, surrounded by people much too drunk to think clearly, to act like average human beings with a filter separating their brains from their mouths, Steve sits quietly and stares out the window, studying the frighteningly unfamiliar skyline of his home, lit up in the darkness like a million fireflies.

(Brooklyn wasn't his home anymore, of course. He'd gone back once, to see if any of the places he'd once known and loved were still standing. When he discovered nothing but a vaguely familiar-looking diner a few miles from his and Bucky's old apartment, he'd headed quickly back to the floor in Avengers' Tower that Tony had so graciously given to him. Home had never been Brooklyn, anyway, he was quick to realize. Home had been Bucky.)

He isn't paying attention to what they're saying, he's thinking of dimpled grins and dark hair and eyes that shone under the sparkling summer sun as they laughed.

He's missing his home.

And so when he finally tunes in, when he realizes what they're talking about, just before they turn to him, it's too late to leave the room.

Too late to escape.

They're playing a disjointed game of Would You Rather, the cards long since tossed aside as they came up with their own options, instead.

After all, when you've been through all that they had, questions like _Would you rather swim with turtles or dolphins?_ got a little boring after a while.

Tony hummed thoughtfully as he considered what to ask. 

"Would you rather . . . " he drawled, trailing off into a long pause as he weighed his options. "Would you rather burn or freeze to death?" He finally decided on, and suddenly Steve was looking anywhere but him.

The darkened window, the muted tv, the open bottle of whiskey on the table.

His eyes flitted aimlessly about the room.

Anywhere, anywhere, anywhere. 

Anywhere but Tony.

"Burn," Natasha says immediately, like she'd known what he was going to ask before the words had left his lips. In fact, Steve didn't doubt that she had, he'd seen her do things far more impressive before. "It's faster."

Clint raises an eyebrow at her, taking a large bite of the pizza slice in his hand and chewing it thoroughly before he says anything. "Not necessarily," he argues after he'd swallowed the bite down noisily. "It would probably hurt more, too. I've heard that freezing isn't even that bad."

Suddenly, Tony's face lights up in excitement, and he nearly jumps up from his seat at the idea that had so obviously sprung up into that brilliantly egotistical and purely _idiotic_ mind of his.

No, no, no.

"Wait!" He exclaims, looking for all the world like a kid on Christmas. "We can just ask!"

Please, God, no.

Steve shrinks down in his seat, tries to make himself as small as possible. Like if he curls up into a tight enough ball, they might just forget he was there.

"Tony," Bruce warns, his tone calm but firm. If anyone could control Tony, it's him. "Tony, don't."

But, of course, Tony doesn't listen.

When does he ever?

"Tell us, Cap," he grins, turning to Steve with a smile so wide it seems impossible for him to know how awful a question he was asking. "What was it like to freeze?"

It seems to take ages for Steve to drag his eyes to meet Tony's. They're heavier than they'd been just moments ago, heavier and darker.

Tight with pain.

"What was it like?" Steve repeats after a moment, his voice quiet. Because, really, what kind of question is that? "It was the worst thing I'd ever felt."

It's a lie.

The biggest lie he's ever told, maybe. The worst thing he'd ever felt, the worst thing by far, had happened just a few days before the Valkyrie crashed into a mass of glittering ice.

The worst day.

It hadn't been on a plane, but a train. And though the mission had begun with a team of them, a team of men as close to Steve as the brothers he'd never had but always wanted, it had ended with him utterly, devastatingly alone.

That day, the worst day, started off simple enough. Like any other.

A teasing joke, an old memory bathed in sunlight.

_Remember that time I made you ride the Cyclone on Coney Island?_

A laugh, a witty response. They don't matter now, not the exact words.

(That doesn't mean Steve doesn't remember, of course. He'll always remember.)

_Now, why would I do that?_

A ten-second window.

 _Mind the gap_.

A zipline, quiet steps onto a deserted traincar.

A door sliding closed.

Gunshots, popping and loud and horrible. Familiar.

The door slides back open, and they're together again, if only for a moment.

 _I had him on the ropes_. An old line, a familiar grin. 

Same old, same old.

Steve and Bucky were nothing if not predictable.

_Get down!_

A crash.

Bucky picks up the shield, and suddenly he's the target, and it's wrong, wrong, _wrong_.

A blast, horrible and unforgettable and life-ending. 

(It isn't just one life that ends that day.)

_Bucky!_

And he's holding on, and Steve's reaching, far as he can.

_Grab my hand!_

Further, now, now they're both in danger. But who cares? He just has to -

The creak of a pole snapping, and a scream, and just like that, Steve's life is forever changed.

 _Bucky_.

But, of course, Tony isn't asking about that day. Why would he be? Because, yes, Bucky was Steve's best friend. Everyone knows that.

 _Best friends since childhood, Bucky Barnes and Steven Rogers were inseparable on both schoolyard and battlefield_.

They know about the terrible, horrible loss.

_Barnes is the only Howling Commando to give his life in service of his country._

But they don't _know_.

Not the way that Steve does. They could never know.

"Steve?"

He shakes his head, clears it, and he's back. They'd asked him a question.

"Are you - "

Okay? No.

He hadn't been okay in a long time, not since - since -

 _Don't do anything stupid until I get back_.

 _How can I? You're taking all the stupid with you_.

"It was . . . slow," he says, vague and horribly vivid at once. They can see what it was like, in the way his steely blue eyes cloud over with the memory. "And it might just be because of the serum, but I was under there, encased in all that ice, for hours before it finally happened."

He pauses. Remembers.

Bruce is staring at him, worried. Even Natasha looks almost concerned.

Steve pushes on.

He's _fine._

He's always fine. (At least, that's what he says.)

"My toes froze first. The pain was awful, like nothing I'd ever felt before. If I was normal, I definitely would've lost 'em."

Physically, it was true. The pain _had_ been awful.

But it hadn't even come close to how it felt to lose Bucky, to know that his best friend was gone forever and it was no one's fault but his own.

"Then my fingers went, and my feet. My hands. I went and laid down, curled up. It was . . . excruciating."

Steve clenches his fists to keep his hands from shaking, his knuckles turning white as the snow and ice that had surrounded the plane on all sides.

"I lost all feeling in them when the water started to seep in."

"Steve? Are you sure you want to - " Someone spoke up. He in't sure who, doesn't care to think on it.

But he can't stop, not now. He's talking faster, his words gaining momentum and jumbling together as he allows himself to really remember.

To hurt.

He hasn't done either one in so long.

His breathing is ragged, now, his nails digging little crescent-shaped marks into his palms. But he goes on. 

He has to.

"A while after everything went numb, after the water had hit around an inch deep, I started to get warm."

Bucky was there.

He was screaming and begging and pleading.

_Get up! Stevie, you have to get up! You can still get out of here!_

He was grabbing Steve's hand, now, and the flesh was no longer just warm where he touched. 

His skin was in flames, his hand was burning, about to melt right off his arm. Bucky was pulling with all his might. But Steve had always been stubborn, and he stayed down.

This was what he wanted.

The war would be ending soon, and the only family Steve had ever had to go back to was Bucky. He wouldn't be going home alone. He couldn't.

If Bucky was going to be staying in a frozen, European wasteland, well. 

Steve would be, too.

Besides, he was exhausted. Sleep was creeping up on him from all sides, and he welcomed it with open arms. He hadn't slept in so long.

_You punk! You awful, stupid, stubborn punk! You need to get up!_

But Steve didn't dare.

After all, he had a date. Someone was waiting for him, someone just on the other side of the line.

Just like they'd promised each other.

And as Steve grew warmer, Bucky grew brighter, his presence solidifying there under the ice. Steve didn't doubt that he was dying, and that Bucky was there to hold his hand, to help him cross to whatever awaited him on the other side.

He'd always said he would be there when it happened, right by Steve's bedside - but of course, neither one ever could've imagined it would happen like this.

That Steve, little, sickly, dying Steve, wouldn't be the first to go.

After a while, Bucky seemed to realize there was no getting Steve out of this one. And so he laid down beside him.

"I could feel my heartbeat slowing. I was warm again, and it was . . . it was nice, almost."

It was like going home.

Steve doesn't realize he's crying until a tear, wet and salty and big, drops off his cheek and splatters against his clenched fist.

He would say Tony looks almost sorry, almost like he regrets asking.

But he's Tony Stark, and he doesn't do _sorry_. 

He doesn't do regret.

"I was so tired. I was - I was warm, and I was tired, and I wasn't alone anymore. Not near the very end."

No one knows what he means by that, but they will not ask and he certainly won't elaborate.

"I closed my eyes, and it was all - it was all okay," Steve breathes. His voice is barely a whisper, now. He's struggling to find the words. "I fell asleep, and he was there."

He wipes roughly at his eyes.

Steve isn't crying because it's a painful memory, he realizes. He's crying because he wishes with all his heart that they'd just let him stay down there, in the ice.

Where it was warm, and it was bright. Because Bucky was there, and he could light up any room with nothing more than a teasing smile. 

He always could, the charming jerk that he was.

"And I was home."

**Author's Note:**

> please let me know if you liked it or loved it or hated it or had any emotion about this story whatsoever!! 
> 
> i thrive on comments and i will love you forever if you take the time to shoot one my way. 
> 
> i really hope you liked it!! :)


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